Hoax of armour-piercing bullets fired by ignorance

Regarding the alleged use of the so-called armour-piercing 7.62x39mm bullets by the terrorists in the recent Lethpora, Pulwama encounter in which 5 CRPF personnel were martyred and the resulting brouhaha over a supposedly new threat dimension, there are compelling reasons to strongly suspect that it is a hoax rooted in abject ignorance of the whole science and engineering of weapon systems in general and bullets in particular.

True armour-piercing bullets have to have cores of extremely hard and dense material like tungsten-chrome alloy, tungsten carbide, manganese-molybdenum steel or depleted uranium. No other material would penetrate RHA steel or ceramic armour. Contrary to popular misconception, the notorious Teflon coating on KTW AP bullets (the so-called ‘cop killer’ bullets) did not help in penetration of Kevlar-based soft body armour in any way — it was just a simple device to protect the rifling of the barrel from excessive erosion due to the hard core of the bullet. The core of a true AP bullet is so hard that aircraft mechanics on US airbases have used the bullet of the .50 BMG as pick punches in the past.

The media and the lay people deriving their knowledge from Internet forums of the uninitiated and similar unauthentic sources are talking of a steel core bullet as if it were something new or extraordinary. It is not so. The steel cores commonly used in 7.62x39mm bullets are made of mild steel, not the hardened steel. The MHA specifications for the BP jackets also speak of resistance to 7.62x39mm mild steel core bullets. There is nothing new in it.

Mild steel cores with or without a little lead cladding have been extremely common since the 1940s. The reason is simple. Mild steel cores are way cheaper than using lead-antimony alloy. They are not armour-piercing by any chance and, in fact, their lethality on human bodies is a little less because they do not deform like lead.

The Chinese firm Norinco is, in fact, known since ages for its very cheap mild steel core bullets.

Using manganese-molybdenum steel would increase the cost dramatically and defeat the very USP of low cost. In fact, even the jacket engaging the rifling is made of mild steel which is copper washed to prevent corrosion and save cost. This is mistakenly thought to be a copper jacket!

The rather illogical US Federal classification in respect of the Nornico bullets is based on materials and bullet design rather than on its ability to penetrate armour.

It is due to such intrinsic illogicalities in the definitions that the Obama administration’s proposed ban on the M855 5.56mm ‘green tip’ bullets had to be eventually dropped in the face of fierce opposition from citizens keen on liberty.

At least 23 different makes of the 7.62x39mm bullets are available in the international market. Not one of them is mass-produced as AP bullet. It is possible to make AP bullets in any calibre, though the ballistics would have to be sacrificed, it has to be custom-made because mass production would not be economical. Any reason to suspect custom-making becomes an entirely different and very serious matter.

While a laboratory analysis of the bullets recovered is supposedly pending, I must caution against placing undue trust in the analysis. The Indian labs are known neither for knowledge nor for integrity. The instances of the totally botched up laboratory analyses of the samples of Maggi; the so-called PETN in UP Assembly; CD of the Anara Gupta case; and description of arsenic sulphide as explosive capable of derailing trains are some of the glaring examples of how they fumble and bungle. The lab findings often seem to cater to the popular notions prevailing about a certain thing.

It would be better to carry out some systematic scientific testing of our own BP jackets and BP materials for their resistance first before jumping to any conclusion about AP bullets.

The author, an IPS, is DGP (Modernization), Kerala